The state official at the head of the RMV's division that failed to keep track of thousands of driving violations has been fired.
Thomas Bowes was director of the Merit Rating Board, the division of the Registry of Motor Vehicles that maintains drivers' records and was responsible for a massive backlog of communications about dangerous drivers from other states that went unheeded in Massachusetts.
The three-member board, which hadn't convened since 2015 according to the Attorney General's office, voted unanimously to dismiss Bowes at it's meeting Tuesday. MassDOT staff were unable to specify when the board last met.
Acting Registrar Jamey Tesler said there are problems with the core functions of the Merit Rating Board division that Bowes headed up for three years.
"We voted today to seek new leadership and that it was time for us to focus on getting the right leadership to address the issues that we have been identifying over the last few weeks," Tesler told reporters after the vote.
Bowes' attorney Loenard Kesten says his client is a scapegoat for the Baker administration's wider mismanagement of the RMV.
"This has been going on for a long time with a lot of people. So let's pick one guy up and we've done our job," Kesten said.
Parallel Investigations by the Baker administration, Legislature and an outside audit firm into why a Massachusetts truck driver who had received a DUI in Connecticut hadn't had his license suspended before allegedly causing a deadly crash in New Hampshire found that Bowes' RMB division failed to process thousands of alerts from other states about dangerous drivers. The RMV's electronic alert system also failed, resulting in thousands of license suspensions going unprocessed.
Bowes insists he alerted former registrar Erin Deveney and Baker administration officials that his staff were overwhelmed with the volume of the backlog and needed assistance.
Along with Tesler, who chaired the meeting, the board is made up of Baker's insurance commissioner Gary Anderson and the head of Attorney General Maura Healey's consumer protection division Glenn Kaplan. The board has begun a search for a replacement to oversee a backlog of communications about drivers records that need to be addressed.
Bowes is a Braintree city councilor and is running to succeed Mayor Joseph Sullivan who isn't seeking reelection.